Unsolvable PC Problem ?

[cjwct]

If you can solve this problem, I dub you as the greatest technician ever . . .

I recently reformatted my hardrive and installed Windows 7 and Office 2007. It is a newer computer with an Atholon 5600+ processor and 2GB of RAM. After about a week, the pc completely slowed down and start up took about 15 minutes. Knowing I did basic internet work and some word documents, I still ran Security Essentials and nothing was found. I then ran defrag and problem still existed afterward. After getting frustrated after a few days, I decided to reinstall Win 7 and guess what? Not only did it take 7 hours to install (wtf????), but the problem remained. I am stumped beyond stumped . . . .what can be the problem!

Any and all help would be appreciated.

 

[Ilya]

Some hardware issue. Most likely bad hard drive: takes several attempts to read a sector... that would be my guess.

 

[cjwct]

if that is the case, then phew . . . easy fix . . . I will wait though and see what others suggest . . . thanks Ilya

 

[Ilya]

Do the error-checking of the disk and select "Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors"
(A reboot will be required and the scan may take an hour or more). See if it will find any bad sectors. If it does, then it's definitly the disk issue. If it doesn't, it might still be the disk issue - I had something like that in the past.
In any case, when reinstalling Windows from scratch it is a good idea to reformat the disk (do not select "Quick format" option). Good luck!

 

[cjwct]

Thanks . . . I will try that and see what happens.

 

[avg1joe]

Cooling comes to mind.

Check for dust and other debris especially clogging the fins of the heatsink.

Did you install all the right drivers to control the cool and quiet (or whatever they're calling it) features of the cpu? While you are at it make sure you have all the latest drivers, from the manufacturers, not just windows update.

Install, update and do a quick scan of malwarebytes antimalware.

 

[diogen]

Not only did it take 7 hours to install...

This spells hardware problems, even on netbooks it takes under an hour...

Did you have have random reboots? Freezes?

If not, I'd blame the SATA/IDE controller...

Diogen.

 

[cjwct]

Everything is dust free, all drivers are updated, and Malware did not find a problem. I may now just bite the bullet and buy a new harddrive and hope that was it.

 

[avg1joe]

Just to confirm: You identified your pc or motherboard, went to the motherboard manufacturer's website and downloaded the drivers from the manufacturer's website and installed them including chipset, sata, amd cool and quiet, updated the bios, etc.?

Don't just buy a hard drive. Test the hard drive first. Identify the manufacturer of the hard drive and download the diagnostics for the drive. Some computers come with drive test software.

 

[Ilya]

Cooling comes to mind.

That was my first thought too. I've seen how overheating can bring a laptop to a crawl.
However, the overheating symptoms are usually different: first, the computer works well and then it slows down as it heats up.
If it takes 15 minutes to do a cold boot, I don't think this could be caused by heating problems.

 

[RandallA]

I vote failing hard drive. But, I have also seen this problem with bad or incorrect drivers for the IDE/SATA controller. Make sure you have the latest chipset drivers from the motherboard manufacturer. And the last possibility, a bad motherboard.

 

[Ilya]

Just get a new drive and try it. If it doesn't help, you can always return it or use it as an external drive in some inexpensive enclosure.

 

[Van]

Sounds like heavy bottlenecking which could be a bad memory stick or a loose one.

 

[mdram]

download this, make a cd and test your ram
Memtest86+ - Advanced Memory Diagnostic Tool

download seatools for dos, test your hd
| Seagate

check your mobo for bad caps
i would even check the psu for proper voltage, you can get a tester at any local shop for a few dollars, or have them test it for you
check all connections

also try booting into safe mode, see if thats faster, if so its could be a driver

when you say taking hours to boot, is that before or after it posts?
any post errors?

 

[jayn_j]

It could be something a lot simpler than that. I have run into long timeout problems when the system has mounted a remote location and attempts to reference it at boot. If the location is not present, it will act like a bad sector and perform multiple retries before timing out and failing.

Take a look at your explorer in My Network Places and see if you have anything hard loaded or mapped to a drive letter. Try removing these if they appear and see if the problem goes away.

 

[tstolze]

Windows 7 has a memory check program installed, hit F8 on start up and choose that option.

I would also check the hard drive cable, either reconnect or try another cable if you have one in the house. I would lean towards the others that the drive is the likely culprit.

 

[LonghornXP]

First because Windows 7 takes an extremely long time to install coupled with the fact that system performance is just as bad before and after the windows install rules "in" very limited options. These options are listed from most likely to least likely.

1. Hard Drive
2. Motherboard (SATA/PATA to be specific)
3. Memory (honestly quite unlikely but possible).
4 CPU going bad.

Now all this talk about installing cool n' quiet, chipset drivers etc are worthless. This is clearly a hardware issue that drivers and software updates clearly won't fix. This is proven because of the install taking so long. Only basic core drivers are used and will function without an issue if the hardware is working.

Next is the fact that this computer most likely will shut itself down with major overheating. Actually I would be quite shocked if you had overheating issues that could cause a 7 hour windows install "without" the windows install just flatout crashing because of the overheating.

If you didn't have much money and don't want to plop down big money I would suggest one of two options to rule in or out the hard drive.

1. Find a USB 2.0 or better portable hard drive (4-8GB thumb drive would do) and install Windows 7 to this drive instead. If performance goes back to normal you have found your problem which is the old hard drive. You must be able to boot from USB devices though and this most likely is an option if available that you can set in your BIOS.

2. Find and download a Live Linux Distro that can run from the CD. If performance is decent (will be a bit slower than a hard drive based install) this can also rule out other hardware. You could try and install the Linux distro onto the hard drive and see if performance is as expected.

However I will repeat again that downloading video drivers, chipset drivers etc "WILL NOT" help with this issue. The fact that this issue causes an extremely slow Windows 7 installation proves this.

We can also rule out a bad install DVD as this issue occurs with the hard drive. Checking the DVD at worst case just in case you have two seperate issues wouldn't hurt though but it's doubtful.

 

[avg1joe]

Did you run diagnostics on the hard drive yet using seatools or the WD, Hitachi, etc equivalent? This gets straight to the heart of the matter without taking you on any expensive wild goose hunts. Involving additional hardware or operating systems you are unfamiliar with will just muddy the waters at this stage. I wouldn't recommend a reinstall until you have some idea what the problem is, unless you have another 7 hours to kill. I'd suggest downloading and burning the bootable diagnostic cd specifically designed to test your brand and model hard drive. Booting from the hard drive diagnostic cd should eliminate a few variables and let you focus on if your hard drive is working.

 

[CJPC]

Before swapping the hdd, which it may be, try changing out the cable. Quite possible that the cable is bad / failing - and much cheaper to test than a new hard disk, if not - move onto the HDD!

 

[navychop]

I'd recommend reading what they have to say at Gibson Research. Then you'll know what to do.

Also, I wouldn't try running W7 with less than 4GB.